As the alleged son of Childeric II, Chilperic was taken from a monastery (where he was living under the religious name of Daniel) and made king of Neustria in 715 or 716. Utterly subservient to Ragenfrid, mayor of the palace, who was attempting to throw off Austrasian control, Chilperic fled to Aquitaine in 719 after being defeated by Charles Martel, Austrasian mayor of the palace at......

(genus Icosteus aenigmaticus), marine fish, the single species in the family Icosteidae (order Perciformes). The ragfish is found throughout the North Pacific. The name refers to their floppy, limp bodies, which are considered flexible as a rag....

style of Jamaican popular music that had its genesis in the political turbulence of the late 1970s and became Jamaica’s dominant music in the 1980s and ’90s. Central to dancehall is the deejay, who raps, or “toasts,” over a prerecorded rhythm track (bass guitar and drums), or “dub.”...

children’s book by Horatio Alger, Jr., published serially in 1867 and in book form in 1868. Alternately titled Street Life in New York with the Bootblacks, the popular though formulaic story chronicles the successful rise of the title character from rags to respectability. Like most of Alger’s novels, Ragged Dick served a second purpose as a guide to proper behavio...

children’s book by Horatio Alger, Jr., published serially in 1867 and in book form in 1868. Alternately titled Street Life in New York with the Bootblacks, the popular though formulaic story chronicles the successful rise of the title character from rags to respectability. Like most of Alger’s novels, Ragged Dick served a second purpose as a guide to proper behavio...

...and brought him a younger audience; soon he would tap emerging bands such as Social Distortion and Sonic Youth as opening acts. The peak of this most recent artistic rebirth came in 1990 with Ragged Glory, with its thick clouds of sound, riddled with feedback and distortion, and gritty, psychologically searing lyrics. Examining time’s passage and human relationships, Young never......

any of the 19th-century English and Scottish institutions maintained through charity and fostering various educational and other services for poor children, such as elementary schooling, industrial training, religious instruction, clothing clubs, and messenger and bootblack brigades. The schools were allied in 1844 with the founding of the Ragged School Union in London. They rapidly died out afte...

...children, such as elementary schooling, industrial training, religious instruction, clothing clubs, and messenger and bootblack brigades. The schools were allied in 1844 with the founding of the Ragged School Union in London. They rapidly died out after 1870 with the introduction of national compulsory education, though a few remained into the 20th century....

...Disillusionment with French policies, however, did not reconcile the Italian Jacobins with their former rulers; instead, it bolstered their nationalism. In Piedmont, for instance, a secret society, I Raggi (“The Beams of Light”), advocated a democratic, unionist, and anti-French program that would lead Italy toward unity and independence....

...Touchstones”), a vigorous denunciation of the Spanish domination of Europe. They were widely translated, the first English version being by Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth, and called Advertisements from Parnassus; in Two Centuries with the Politick Touch-stone (1656). This and other European translations influenced Miguel de Cervantes, Joseph Addison, and......

formerly one of the great cities of Iran. The remains of the ancient city lie on the eastern outskirts of the modern city of Shahr-e Rey, which itself is located just a few miles southeast of Tehrān....

...of the Śaiva saints, including the Vīraśaiva (or Liṅgāyat) and the earlier Tamil Nāyaṉārs. In the early 13th century, his disciple and nephew, Rāghavāṅka, wrote, in ṣaṭpadis (six-line stanzas), of the lives of saints, in well-structured works such as Sōmanātha Carite and......

...of Vyamkoji at Thanjavur, both of whom claimed a status equal to that of the Satara raja, the line at Nagpur was clearly subordinate to the Satara rulers. A crucial figure from this line is Raghuji Bhonsle (ruled 1727–55), who was responsible for the Maratha incursions on Bengal and Bihar in the 1740s and early ’50s. The relations of his successors, Janoji, Sabaji, and Mudoji,......

(Dec. 17, 1803), pact concluded by Sir Arthur Wellesley (later 1st duke of Wellington) between Raghuji Bhonsle II—the Maratha raja of Berar—and the British East India Company. With the Treaty of Surji-Arjungaon (Dec. 30, 1803), it marked the end of the first phase of the Second Maratha War (1803–05). By this treaty the raja of Berar ceded Cuttack and Balasore in Orissa to the......

Pudukkottai was founded by Raghunath, raja of Tondaimandalam (the region around the ancient port of Tondi on India’s southeastern coast). Industries include peanut (groundnut) oil and sesame oil extraction. The city is connected by railway to Tiruchchirappalli and Thanjavur as well as to Madurai to the southwest. Rice, pulses (legumes), sugarcane, cotton, peanuts, and sesame seeds are grown in......

...western India, Hastings was the victim of Bombay brashness and of directorial blunders. A succession struggle in Pune for the peshwa-ship led Bombay to support Raghunatha Rao in the hope of securing the island of Salsette and town of Bassein. (See Treaty of Purandhar.) When this was countermanded by Calcutta, London interve...

...western India, Hastings was the victim of Bombay brashness and of directorial blunders. A succession struggle in Pune for the peshwa-ship led Bombay to support Raghunatha Rao in the hope of securing the island of Salsette and town of Bassein. (See Treaty of Purandhar.) When this was countermanded by Calcutta, London interve...

The leading poet of the middle of the 18th century was Koca Ragıb Paşa, whose public life was that of a high bureaucrat and diplomat. His career extended from serving as chief secretary of foreign affairs and, later, as grand vizier to being governor of several large provinces. Ragıb Paşa made no striking formal innovations, but the language of his ......

Scorsese then made the brutal but beautiful Raging Bull (1980). Loosely adapted by Schrader and Mardik Martin from the memoir of former middleweight boxing champ Jake La Motta, this vitriolic essay on the pleasurable pain of violence is immediately impressive for its stunning black-and-white cinematography by Michael Chapman and for its meticulous re-creation of 1940s......

His autobiography, Raging Bull (1970), was made into a movie, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro as LaMotta, in 1980. LaMotta later acted in a number of films, including the Paul Newman vehicle The Hustler (1961), and toured as a stand-up comedian. In 1990 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame....

...he gave himself, flagello dei principe (“scourge of princes”). Aretino was particularly vicious in his attacks on Romans because they had forced him to flee to Venice. In his Ragionamenti (1534–36; modern edition, 1914; “Discussions”), Roman prostitutes reveal to each other the moral failings of many important men of their city, and in I......

American lawyer, speaker, educator, and writer best known for her role as the plaintiff’s counsel in the landmark case Roe v. Wade, which, in 1973, overturned antiabortion statutes in Texas and made abortion legal throughout the United States....

...plays, Marmor (1918; “Marble”) and Vi mordere (1920; We Murderers), as well as in his first novel, Ragnar Finnsson (1922), all of which are set in America, attention is focused on crime and punishment. Questions about societal versus personal responsibility are posed with compassion for the......

(Old Norse: “Doom of the Gods”), in Scandinavian mythology, the end of the world of gods and men. The Ragnarök is fully described only in the Icelandic poem Völuspá (“Sibyl’s Prophecy”), probably of the late 10th century, and in the 13th-century Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson (d. 1241), which largely follows the Völuspá. According to those two sources, the ...

(Old Norse: “Doom of the Gods”), in Scandinavian mythology, the end of the world of gods and men. The Ragnarök is fully described only in the Icelandic poem Völuspá (“Sibyl’s Prophecy”), probably of the late 10th century, and in the 13th-century Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson (d. 1241), which largely follows the Völuspá. According to those two sources, the ...

...successfully asserted his authority in the northern and western isles and made an agreement with the king of Scots on their respective spheres of influence. A mid-12th-century earl of Orkney, Ragnvald, built the great cathedral at Kirkwall in honour of his martyred uncle St. Magnus....

June 10, 1918Paris, FranceApril 30, 2015Neuilly-sur-Seine, FranceFrench cabaret singer and actress who was one of the most-popular nightclub performers in post-World War II Paris. Her husky voice, bravura approach to the traditional chanson, and irreverent humour (she oft...

The French ragout à brun is a brown stew that is flavoured with garlic, tomato, and herbs. A navarin is a ragout à brun made with lamb or mutton; navarin à la printanière has been garnished with new potatoes, carrots, peas, onions, and turnips. Fricassees and blanquettes are “white” stews of poultry (in the case of......

Sept. 4, 1930Philadelphia, Pa.July 13, 2011New York, N.Y.American songwriter and record producer who wrote some of the best-known rock-and-roll songs of the 1960s, including “Time Is on My Side,” recorded by the Rolling Stones (1964), and several of Janis Joplin...

Sept. 4, 1930Philadelphia, Pa.July 13, 2011New York, N.Y.American songwriter and record producer who wrote some of the best-known rock-and-roll songs of the 1960s, including “Time Is on My Side,” recorded by the Rolling Stones (1964), and several of Janis Joplin...

...from history first became apparent in The Book of Daniel (1971; film 1983), a fictionalized treatment of the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage in 1953. In Ragtime (1975; film 1981), historical figures share the spotlight with characters emblematic of the shifting social dynamics of early 20th-century America....

...and Geraldine Chaplin, the film was a commercial and critical failure, which resulted in the canceling of Altman’s contract to direct a film version of E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime (eventually made by Miloš Forman). Undaunted, Altman acted as producer, director, and writer for Three Women (1977). A mystical investigation into the......

propulsively syncopated musical style, one forerunner of jazz and the predominant style of American popular music from about 1899 to 1917. Ragtime evolved in the playing of honky-tonk pianists along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the last decades of the 19th century. It was influenced by minstrel-show songs, blacks’ banjo styles, and syncopated (off-b...

zoo in Jakarta, Indon., that is one of the world’s notable collections of Southeast Asian flora and fauna. More than 3,500 specimens of approximately 450 animal species are exhibited on the 200-hectare (494-acre) park grounds. Among these are the orangutan, Sumatran serow, and various other rare animals of Indonesia. The zoo was founded in 1864 on a 4-hectare (11-acre) site and was moved to a new ...

city, southeastern Sicily, Italy. The city lies in the Hyblaei Hills above the gorge of the Irminio River, west of Syracuse. The old lower town of Ragusa Ibla (on the site of the ancient Hybla Heraea) is separated from the upper (modern) town by a declivity. Ragusa was the centre of an independent county from 1091 until it was united with that of Modica in 1296. The old town was...

port of Dalmatia, southeastern Croatia. Situated on the southern Adriatic Sea coast, it is usually regarded as the most picturesque city on the Dalmatian coast and is referred to as the “Pearl of the Adriatic.”...

marshal of France whose distinguished military career ended when, as Napoleon’s chief lieutenant in a battle under the walls of the city, he surrendered Paris (March 30, 1814) and a few days later took his troops into the Allied lines....

port of Dalmatia, southeastern Croatia. Situated on the southern Adriatic Sea coast, it is usually regarded as the most picturesque city on the Dalmatian coast and is referred to as the “Pearl of the Adriatic.”...

(genus Ambrosia), any of a group of about 40 species of weedy plants of the family Asteraceae. Most species are native to North America. The ragweeds are coarse annuals with rough hairy stems, mostly lobed or divided leaves, and inconspicuous greenish flowers that are borne in small heads, the male in terminal spikes and the female in the upper axils of the leaves. The common ragweed (A....

any of about 1,200 species of annual, biennial, and perennial herbs, shrubs, trees, and climbers constituting the genus Senecio of the family Asteraceae, distributed throughout the world. Some species are cultivated as border plants or houseplants, and many species contain alkaloids that are poisonous to grazing animals....

...of Jesse, the father of David (the architect of the Israelite empire), which may be the reason why this story was included in Joshua. Also in the New Testament, in the Letter to the Hebrews, Rahab is depicted as an example of a person of faith. After the return of the spies, who reported that the people of Canaan were “fainthearted” in the face of the Israelite threat, Joshua......

in Jewish mythology, a primordial sea serpent. Its source is in prebiblical Mesopotamian myth, especially that of the sea monster in the Ugaritic myth of Baal (see Yamm). In the Old Testament, Leviathan appears in Psalms 74:14 as a multiheaded sea serpent that is killed by God and given as food to the Hebrews in the wilderness. In Isa...

From 1663 to 1795, during the Dutch rule of Malabar, the Jews of Cochin enjoyed a golden age. David Ezekiel Rahabi (1694–1771) was, from 1726 on, the chief merchant of the Dutch East India Company and negotiated on their behalf with the surrounding local rulers. The Paradesis started to decline in the 19th century. In search of better economic prospects, Cochin Jews also moved to Calcutta......

tributary of the Blue Nile, rising in the Ethiopian highlands, west of Lake Tana. It flows more than 300 miles (480 km) northwest into the eastern part of the Sudan to join the Blue Nile above Wadi Medanī. Although waterless during the dry season, it has a large flow during the flood season (June–September)....

tributary of the Blue Nile, rising in the Ethiopian highlands, west of Lake Tana. It flows more than 300 miles (480 km) northwest into the eastern part of the Sudan to join the Blue Nile above Wadi Medanī. Although waterless during the dry season, it has a large flow during the flood season (June–September)....

town, eastern Malta, just south of Valletta and adjacent to Tarxien to the southeast. It was founded in 1626 by the grand master of the Hospitallers (Knights of Malta), Antoine de Paule, and it remained a small village until the late 19th century, when it grew rapidly as a residential district for workers from the adjacent Grand Har...

Oct. 14, 1933Boston, Mass.June 11, 2011New York, N.Y.American physician and educator who was a leading expert on infectious diseases, notably the West Nile virus, and on drug-resistant bacteria, about which he publicly raised concerns in the early 1990s before the growing extent of the prob...

March 17, 1925Antelias, near Beirut, Leb.Jan. 13, 2009BeirutLebanese composer, lyricist, and poet who collaborated with his older brother, Assi, on hundreds of songs and more than 20 musical theatre productions, many of which they created as a showcase for Assi’s wife, the vocalist and wide...

(Arabic: “monasticism”), the monastic state, whose admissibility in Islām is much disputed by Muslim theologians. The term appears but once in the Qurʾān: “And we set in the hearts of those who follow Jesus, tenderness and mercy. And monasticism they invented—we did not prescribe it for them—only seeking the good pleasure of God” (57:27). Although this verse has been interprete...

...and judiciary are overseen by several bodies dominated by the clergy. At the head of both the state and oversight institutions is a ranking cleric known as the rahbar, or leader, whose duties and authority are those usually equated with a head of state....

...poem’s speaker comes across a deserted encampment and muses nostalgically about times past and especially about his absent beloved. Via a transition, a second section (the raḥīl) recounts a desert journey, thus affording the opportunity for descriptions of animals—especially the camel and horse as primary riding beasts—that are......

British Islamist militant who gained notoriety as the so-called Shoe Bomber in 2001 after he attempted—by igniting explosives hidden in the soles of his high-top basketball shoes—to blow up an airplane on which he and some 200 other passengers were traveling....

town, southern Punjab province, Pakistan. The town was founded in 1751 as Naushehra and received its present name in 1881. It is linked by road and rail with Bahāwalpur, Multān, and Sukkur and is a growing industrial centre (cotton ginning and cottonseed-oil pressing). It has a large sports stadium and government colleges affiliated with the University of the Punjab. Cotton, whe...

...are now bestowed to all Sikhs in a birth and naming ceremony (see below Rites and festivals). All of these changes have been incorporated into the Rahit, the Sikh code of belief and conduct, which reached nearly its final form in the early 20th century....

in Sikhism, sets of guidelines that govern the behaviour of Sikhs. The rahit-namas provide systematic statements of the principles of the Khalsa (the community of initiated Sikhs) and the way of life lived in accordance with these principles....

...the ruling family throughout the 20th century. Following the departure of the Āl Khalīfah from Qatar, the country was ruled by a series of transitory sheikhs, the most famous of whom was Raḥmah ibn Jābir al-Jalāhimah, who was regarded by the British as a leading pirate of the so-called Pirate Coast....

...the pilgrims are reminded of their duties. At the second stage of the ritual, which takes place between the 8th and the 12th days of the month, the pilgrim visits the holy places outside Mecca—Jabal al-Raḥmah, Muzdalifah, Minā—and sacrifices an animal in commemoration of Abraham’s sacrifice. Male pilgrims’ heads are then usually shaved, and female pilgrims remove a lock......

...(direct ancestor of the sultans of present-day Johor, Malaysia), that the company could purchase land. The temenggong, however, was a subordinate of his cousin Abdul Rahman, sultan of Riau-Johor, who was under Dutch surveillance. Furthermore, Abdul Rahman was a younger son and not a sultan de jure. Raffles, disobeying instructions not to offend the Dutch,.....

first supreme chief of state of the Federation of Malaya. After the declaration of independence from Great Britain in 1957, the tuanku became the first head of state, or paramount ruler, elected by and from the Malay rulers for a five-year term. Abdul Rahman died before completion of his term....

...a series of injuries and did not fight at all in 2005. He announced his retirement after having surgery to repair his right knee, which was injured while training for a bout with former champion Hasim Rahman (U.S.). The WBC subsequently awarded the title to Rahman....

Indian-born dancer who performed and taught a number of the classical dances of India; she was the first professional to perform the ancient odissi,a dance that began in the temples, and she introduced this and other long-neglected dances to an international audience (b. 1930, Madras, India—d. Feb. 5, 1999, New York, N.Y.)....

...at Ardabīl, Iran, gave rise to the Iranian Ṣafavid dynasty (1502–1736) and several Turkish branches active against the Ottomans early in the 16th century. The Algerian Raḥmānīyah grew out of the Khalwatīyah in the second half of the 18th century, when ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān al-Ghushtulī, the founder, made himself the centre......

Also missing at the time was a name to describe such a South Asian country where Muslims would be masters of their own destiny. That task fell to Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a young Muslim student studying at Cambridge in England, who best captured the poet-politician’s yearnings in the single word Pakistan. In a 1933 pamphlet, Now or Never, Rahmat Ali and three Cambridge......

German Jesuit priest who is widely considered to have been one of the foremost Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century. He is best known for his work in Christology and for his integration of an existential philosophy of personalism with Thomistic realism, by which human self-consciousness and self-transcendence are placed within a sphere in which the ultimate determinant is God....

geographic region that composes part of the Lower Ganges (Ganga) Plains in northern West Bengal state, eastern India. The alluvial plains, with an area of about 12,400 square miles (32,000 square km), are essentially flat, except in the mountainous northern area. Moist deciduous forests of sal (Shorea robusta), champac, and acacia are frequently found, ...

When he had been informed seven days earlier that his wife had given birth to a son, he said, “A fetter has arisen.” The child was named Rahula, meaning “fetter.” Before the prince left the palace, he went into his wife’s chamber to look upon his sleeping wife and infant son. In another version of the story, Rahula had not yet been born on the night of the departure from......

In many cases this partnership is nominal and historical rather than substantial and actual. The outstanding example is Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI), originally founded in 1924. In 1927 an agreement was made with the government for a 25-year broadcasting concession. The charter was extended to cover television in 1952. Two years later a government agency acquired control, and in 1985 it......

formerly one of the great cities of Iran. The remains of the ancient city lie on the eastern outskirts of the modern city of Shahr-e Rey, which itself is located just a few miles southeast of Tehrān....

a type of Algerian popular music that arose in the 1920s in the port city of Oran and that self-consciously ran counter to accepted artistic and social mores. An amalgam of local Algerian and Western popular-music styles, raï emerged as a major world-music genre in the late 1980s....

a people indigenous to eastern Nepal, living west of the Arun River in the area drained by the Sun Kosi River, at elevations of 5,500–7,700 feet (1,700–2,300 m), and also in southwestern Bhutan. The most populous group of the Kiranti people, the Rai numbered about 635,000 at the turn of the 21st century. They speak several dialects of Kiranti, a Tibeto-Burman language. With the ...

largest island of the Îles Sous le Vent (Leeward Islands), in the Society Islands, French Polynesia, in the central South Pacific Ocean. With an area of 92 square miles (238 square km), it is the second largest island of French Polynesia. Raiatea is volcanic and mountainous, culminating in peaks above 3,000 feet (1,000 met...

Italian Renaissance artist and the major Bolognese painter of the late 15th century. He is considered one of the initiators of the Renaissance style in Bologna. He was much influenced by such Ferrarese painters as Lorenzo Costa, Francesco del Cossa, and Ercole de’ Roberti, but his later works clearly show the influence of the Umbrians, Perugino, and Raphael. Francia’s mature style is seen in such ...

...tracks per inch (8,000 tracks per cm) by the start of the 21st century—which has resulted in the storage capacity of these devices growing nearly 30 percent per year since the 1980s. RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) combines multiple disk drives to store data redundantly for greater reliability and faster access. They are used in high-performance computer network servers....

During 2014 the scrutiny over police militarization entered the spotlight in May when a Georgia SWAT team deployed a flash grenade during a drug raid. The incendiary device landed in the crib of toddler Bounkham Phonesavanh, critically injuring him. News soon surfaced that the boy’s parents were staying with relatives at the time, that the drug suspect no longer lived at the home, and that the......